“Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
“On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.” Oh, dear Walt, on that Bklyn Ferry you have caused me to see my connections to the past and future; I cry with delight and awe!
“Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
“On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.” Oh, dear Walt, on that Bklyn Ferry you have caused me to see my connections to the past and future; I cry with delight and awe!
I can only imagine the howls of those who found Whitman too much for polite society if they read Roethke, Ginsberg, or Bukowski.